Marking Milan Design Week 2025, Dedar unveils a multi-series collaboration with the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation. Get a first look at the initial collection as Hotel Designs introduces the debut five fabrics…
Anni Albers transformed textile design into an art form, redefining weaving through both precision and creativity. Now, Italian textile house Dedar Milano is reinterpreting her vision with a new collection of jacquard fabrics, debuting at the Weaving Anni Albers exhibition on the 16th floor of Torre Velasca, during Milan Design Week 2025.
With a deep respect for Anni’s legacy, Dedar approaches this project not as mere replication, but as an exploration – translating her pioneering spirit into contemporary textiles. By blending artistic heritage with technical expertise, the collaboration reflects decades of research and innovation, allowing Anni’s creations to be reimagined for today’s world.
From paper to fabric
Dedar’s collection introduces four ‘pictorial weavings’ – a term Albers used to describe her textile compositions – alongside a newly woven interpretation of a drawing that, until now, had only existed on paper. With Dedar, these designs find new life as upholstery fabrics, curtains, panels, and other textile elements for interiors. Balancing historical fidelity with modern production techniques, the collection bridges the gap between art and function, past and present.
But the challenge is more than technical – it is philosophical. How does one honour a legend without confining her work to static reverence? Dedar embraces this by following Anni’s own philosophy: to create, rather than merely replicate. Throughout her career – from the Bauhaus to Black Mountain College – Anni emphasised imagination over reproduction, always pushing the boundaries of what weaving could express.
A connection of worlds
“The exploration of Albers’s work and the dialogue with her way of thinking have called for open mindedness in creative terms – and, above all, the desire to “take thread for a walk”, without any particular destination in mind, just as Anni did, inspired by the maestro Paul Klee. The reinterpretation of textures, colours, and forms originally intended for hand weaving has put our textile expertise to the test but, as she herself used to say, “art gives us courage” and therefore, with every new research endeavour we expand our knowledge”, said Caterina and Raffaele Fabrizio, CEO and Creative Director of Dedar.
Albers’ work was defined by a rare duality – merging function with artistic freedom. At times, she designed textiles for everyday use, applying the precision of industrial production. In other moments, she let go of utility entirely, weaving purely as an artist. This balance between structure and spontaneity, order and expression, remains at the heart of her enduring influence.
“It has long been our dream to see Anni Albers’s materials, reproduced with maximum fidelity to their original appearance. The people at Dedar, with their wonderful feeling for thread of every sort and extraordinary knowledge of weaving technique, have done a superlative job of realising this desire,” said Nicholas Fox Weber, Director of the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation. “We feel that Anni would have been thrilled.”
Threads of the future
This project is not a conclusion – it is a continuation. Anni saw weaving as a process of discovery, where each thread opened new possibilities. Dedar carries this vision forward, treating this first series as the beginning of an ongoing conversation between art, design, and materiality.
As this collaboration unfolds, new dialogues between past and present will emerge – proving that in weaving, as in art, discovery never ends.
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Main image courtesy of Josef & Anni Albers Foundation | credit: John T. Hill
All other image credits: Dedar Milano
